March 3, 2025 • 33 mins
Detectives Andrew Houghton and Matt Vartanian from the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Unit continue their investigation into Theory #2, that something happened at PM Bentley’s. As they review the case file, they discover that a former employee of PM Bentley’s was never interviewed, so they track her down and she reveals new information about a man who stalked her and her and her car in the parking lot and followed her home in the months leading up to Karen’s disappearance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police
and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details
may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons.
While the events in cases discussed are based on real investigations,
some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes.
(00:27):
Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents.
All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness.
Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast,
but such discussions are not intended to and should not
(00:48):
be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All
persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a
court of law. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something,
a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit.
In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold
cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details
and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You
will come along with real cold case detectives as they
(01:30):
investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice
for the victims and closure for their families. We believe
that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work
together to bring closure to cold cases because we know
that in these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Hello and welcome to the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Podcast.
Somebody Knows Something. My name is Detective Andrew Howton.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Detective Matt Vartanian. Last episode, we took our listeners to
the site where PM Bentley's was located in nineteen eighty
three and discussed with a witness who claimed that he
saw Karen with some bikers both inside on April fifteenth
and outside the bar in the early morning hours of
April sixteenth of nineteen eighty three. We also reviewed a
(02:21):
tip about a man with a beij van who a
woman said claimed he was responsible for Karen's disappearance. Since
we began our investigation, we tracked on a new witness
who was never interviewed by police for this case. In
this episode, we will hear directly from her and her
(02:43):
new information which could point this investigation in a totally
new direction.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Okay, So we visited the site where PM Bentley's was
located and we spoke with the owner, Frank, who's been
really helpful regarding history of the bar. Things like that.
Back in nineteen eighty three, Frank cooperated flour with police,
was interviewed and he gave a list of numerous employees
who were working tonight that Karen went missing. He also
gave another piece of potentially valuable information that was never
(03:08):
fully fleshed out until now.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
That's right. The original report from April of nineteen eighty
three included a list of employees, and the original officer
at that time wrote three sentences in his report that
we felt could be very, very important.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
The owner advised that he had a former employee that
worked for him in January nineteen eighty three. He advised
of a particular incident that happened with her that month.
She advised him that one night after leaving the tavern,
a subject followed her home in a car.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
That former employee was no longer working at PM Bentley's
on April fifteenth of nineteen eighty three. But that information
certainly piqued our interest, especially when we realized that no
one ever had talked to her.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Absolutely well. As we've talked about in the past, tracking
people down almost four decades later, it can be really difficult,
and it took us some time to find out who
this employee actually was, given that her last name had
changed since nineteen eighty three and there wasn't a date
of birth provided for her in the report. But we
were able to do it, and when we did May
and Matt, I mean, she had some really interesting things.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
To tell us.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Yeah, the former employe's name is Susannah. When we first
spoke to Susannah on the phone, she had no knowledge
of this case whatsoever. She had never even heard about
Karen or that anyone had gone missing. In fact, she
asked us how we even got her name.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
We explained to her who we were and what we
were doing, and once she kind of found that out,
she asked us to tell her a little bit about
Karen's case. Once she understood what our goals were and
what this case was all about, she was more than
happy to help us in any way that she could.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
We asked Susannah about her time at PM Bentley's, what
it was like to work there, and what type of
crowd the bar typically had on any given night, specifically
on the weekends. This is what she had to say.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
I was trying to do a timeline so my best
recollection is that I must have started in the fall
of nineteen eighty two. I worked there part time. I
was a secretary by day for a private restaurant, and
then I worked there part time, probably on the weekends. Mostly.
The uniform that we were given is a pair of
(05:18):
green tight shorts and a yellow T shirt that was
pretty form fitting as well. It was kind of like
oh Hooter's outfit to compare it to. OK, so that
was our standard outfit. And the clientele that was there
in the beginning, it was when they first really opened up.
(05:40):
It was very nice, young kids basically coming in to
hear live music. The bands were different kinds of bands,
of course, different kinds of music, mostly pop rock, and
people could come in have a cocktail dance and it
would be open till two am in the morning and
then you know, go on their merry way for breakfast.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You said that the clientele initially was pretty good, like
younger kids coming into your bands. Was there a change
in that during the time you worked there.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
I think probably somewhere closer to the end of me leaving,
we were getting motorcycle people coming in and I'd not
say anything bad about motorcycle riders, but I think it
was a lot of people that we weren't used to
if you were local people trying to have a good time,
(06:32):
So they were outsiders.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
I would say, obviously, because this biker angle is something
that has come up in the investigation, we wanted a
little bit more information about that. This is an off
the wall question with this, but do you ever remember
them like wearing like black leather vests with like colors
on the back of them that would signify, you know,
maybe like belonging to a gang or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
I know that there were like in the summer, I
think they were wearing the vest with the T shirt
type thing, and then I can't remember if there's anything
on the back of their vests or anything.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Okay, And do you remember them ever causing problems, you know,
for you guys at all.
Speaker 6 (07:11):
I think there was some times where they were asked
to leave, and I don't know if they were happy
about that. You know, everybody's wanting to have a good
time and you know, not be kicked out of a bar.
But I do know there was some kind of confrontation
a couple of times that when they were asked to
(07:31):
leave okay.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
And when you say confrontation, like did they get into
it with like the bouncers or like just other clientele,
or did like the police have to be involved.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
I don't know, because once I was I was the bartender,
so I stayed behind the bar, so once they were
asked to leave, I never knew if the police were
out there with the manager or whatever. I know there
was like a bouncer and then a manager type people
that would take care of all that.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
We also asked Susanna to describe the bar's interior to
us to get a better idea from her memory as
a worker there. We'd walked up there with Frank, but
it was nice to get another perspective.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
So you went inside the mall and there was like
a little ramp type walk away area. There were no steps,
so once you reached the bottom of that ramp, PM
Bentleys was to your right, so you had to go
through the double doors first of all to get into
the building, and then the doors to the PM Bentleys
was on the right as well, and that would have
been locked unless the bar was open. So once you
(08:29):
walked in there, you were in like the lobby area.
I don't know what else to call it, but that's
where the payphone would be. That would be the bathrooms.
If you made a very quick right once you entered,
you would go into the actual bar area where you
could sit, and I want to say it was like
a square, probably more of a rectangular shaped bar, so
(08:53):
it was totally enclosed and you could sit all the
way around the four sides of the bar.
Speaker 7 (08:58):
Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
And then right after, if you're going back into the lobby,
if you walk right past the bathrooms, which would have
been you know, right after the right turn, you would
have gone to the bar. The bathrooms were right there.
So right after the bar would be the lounge area
where they had stand up tables tabletops for a little
(09:21):
lower seating, and then it had a pretty decent size
dance floor and at the back end of the little
lounge or the bar would be the stage for the bands.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Okay, well, it was great to get that new perspective
from Susannah about the layout, the atmosphere, the patrons, the background.
What we really wanted to know about was Frank's statement
about this guy potentially following her home back in nineteen
eighty three. Susanna confirmed that someone did follow her home,
and she did tell Frank about it because it really
freaked her out.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
So I would leave the bar. We would start cleaning
up about one point thirty, and if everybody was out
the door, we were able to leave at two. They
were pretty strict about not having in the beginning. They
were strict about getting out of there at two o'clock.
So I had left, and I lived.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
All the way in Lake in the Hills, so I
thought it was weird that.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
A car was turning. You know, first of all, when
you see somebody turning out on the parking lot, you
just think everybody's leaving, blah blah, blah blah. And then
when I kept turning, I kept thinking, that person's like
turning all the way the same way I am, and
they and they were right behind me the whole time.
It wasn't like there.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Was a stop light.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
I lost them, another car got in front of them
or turned in front of them. At two o'clock in
the morning, there wasn't a whole lot of people on
the road, so he a person, I should say, I
can't say exactly who at that time, followed me. And
then when I turned into my driveway, and like in
the hills, it went straight.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Do you remember anything about the car that followed you.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I guess I don't really remember a whole lot. I
want to say it was it was a car versus
a truck.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Okay, And you said, yeah, when you pulled into your driveway,
did you Was it a single family home or was
it an apartment or I lived with.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
My parents, so it was a four bedroom, full basement
home with a garage. But I was the one that
had to park outside the garage because I came in last.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah, it was like in a subdivision, I assume, yes.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
Yes, it's right off of Randall Road.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Okay. Do you remember anything else about the car, like color, size,
anything like that.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
No, because I was kind of freakish. You know. That
was the age before I had a cell phone, so
it's not like you could make a phone call on
the way home and ask somebody to be waiting for
you or whatever. So I just wanted to hurry up
and getting up a driveway and then run in the house.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Someone following Susannah home is certainly a lead we wanted
to look at, but we never expected Susannah to tell
that A whole lot more had happened to her while
she worked at PM Bentley's.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Yes, I was. I drove a little sports car convertible.
I was young and dumb, but I would drive that
to the bar. And there were several occasions I would
go out to my car and I had some stuffed
animals in the car as well. You know, your mother
gives you crazy stuffed animals and you put them in
(12:27):
the backseat of your car. So when I had come
out a few times, my stuffed animals were literally tied
up and strangled and by the seat belts of my car,
and a note would be left on the steering wheel.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Did anything else ever happened with your car when it
was in the lot? Yes, So I.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Would come out some days, and because it was a
stick shift that they could easily move my car, and
because back in the day the mall I think was
bigger than what it is now, and the sidewalks were
real large or wide, i should say, and my car
would be found ten fifteen storefronts down the sidewalk, because
(13:11):
I'd walk out and I'd be like, where's my car?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, you know you described that the one time that
you came out and you found those stubbed animals strangled
with the seatbelts. There was a note on your steering wheel?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Is that right?
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Actually it was a couple times that I have found
notes on my steering wheel, and it progressively got a
little more demented and a little bit weirder every time
I find another note.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Yeah, would you be able to share with us some
of the details of the note, like just kind of
how like what they were kind of talking about at first,
and then how it kind of got a little scarier
for you.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Yeah, So in the beginning it would just be about
my animals or me, so and this was kind of weird.
So I was real young, and I would too on
wooden pencils all the time. I guess I had very
large front teeth.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
So my mother always used.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
To call me beaver. So her idea was to give
me stuffed animals that were beavers. So inside my car
were all stuffed beavers. So one of the letters was
addressed to Beaver.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Susannah went on to tell us that the letters were
sexual and stalking in nature, and that she was pretty
concerned about the car being moved, the person following her
home and the letters. She also told us that multiple
letters were left in her car at various times in
late nineteen eighty two or maybe early of nineteen eighty three.
She didn't remember all the details about the letters, but
(14:43):
said that they really did kind of creep her out.
Then shortly after we hung up with her, she called
us back.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Hey, this is Susanna. I just wanted to inform you
that I had found one of the letters that I
received during the time I worked at Pam Bentley's. It
is from the fellow that followed me home and it
is quite disturbing letter. He addresses it to Beaver and
he ends it beaver squeezer, and the contents of the
(15:14):
letter is kind of sick and demented. Talks about strangling
my beavers and what's a threesome with me, my car,
my beavers. So I just want to let you know
I got this letter and I will give it to
you in person when I see.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You, Okay, Matt. So we were pretty blown away that
Susannah still had one of these letters. Yeah, and we
were really interested in hearing what I had to say,
So we immediately called her back, and when she read
the letter to us over the phone and then sent
us a photograph of it. We both agreed the contents
were very disturbing. Here's what that actual letter said.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
Beaver saw you at Rick's grad party. Loved your laugh
he he, You really seemed to know how to put
the AHA and party. I would like to meet you,
but I'm too shy at this time, so I'll just
sit and stare at your car and fantasize how you
(16:11):
use your hand on the stick shift. This fantasy runs
in passion as red as your car. What do you
say we get together and have a threesome with you your
car and me not in it, but under it. I
love a tight squeeze. I was jealous that one of
your beavers was a boy, so I strangled it with
(16:33):
a seatbelt in the driver's seat. And part one. That's
all for now, see you Friday Beaver squeezer.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Okay, so I don't know about you. I mean, I
was pretty shocked about the contents of this letter. It
was written in place in Susannah's car in the months
leading up to Karen's disappearance, and she disappeared from the
same place, the same location. Someone had clearly stocked Susanna's
car stocked Susannah entered her car strangled her stuffed animals
on multiple occasions. You know, we both think, and Susanna
(17:09):
did too, that it's likely that the same person that
left these notes and entered her car is the same
person also moved her car across the parking lot, and
she thinks it's probably the same person that also followed
her home.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Susannah also provided us with a picture of herself in
nineteen eighty two, and she looked very similar to Karen.
Both women are white. Susannah was almost twenty two years
old when Karen vanished, and then, as people remember, Karen
was twenty three, and Susannah was similar in height, weight,
and had a pretty similar hairstyle to some of the
early eighty photos that we have of Karen. She fears
(17:42):
that the same person could have potentially had something to
do with Karen's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Susannah went on to tell us that this Beaver Squeezer
letter was the first letter she got in a series
of four or maybe five letters. While she didn't remember
the exact contents of the subsequent letters, she did say
they progressively got more sexual will and more intense, and
this first letter we felt was sexually pretty intense. In
the first place. Yeah, So, according to Susannah, this first
(18:08):
letter was the most tame one. They must have gotten
pretty graphic moving forward.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Yeah, Susannah was understandably concerned about all the actions in
the parking lot with her car, and with the fact
that the author of the letters referenced her as quote
unquote beaver, something that only people who were around her
would have known about. She also said that the subsequent
letters talked about things at the bar, so she felt
that the author was certainly someone who was around PM
(18:34):
Bentley's at the time when she was working, kind of
like someone that who was maybe a regular customer, maybe
even an employee.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Susannah did report the letters to Carpentersville police either in
late eighty two or early nineteen eighty three, a little
before Karen's disappearance. According to her, the police did some
extra patrols around closing time and she turned in a
couple of the letters to the police department. Unfortunately, when
we went back and tried to look for those records,
records from eighty two to eighty three just don't exist anymore. Yeah,
the retention periods for that type of case is different
(19:02):
because it's not a homicide or some other case where
you would keep those records. Thankfully, she was able to
come across this one letter in her storage unit, and
it gives us a really good idea of the content
of these letters.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
As we discussed the actual letter with Susannah, she had
one more, really big piece of information she wanted to
share with us. She believed that she knew who was
sending the letters.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Was there ever an occasion where you discovered who was
writing these letters to you?
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Yeah? So I didn't say much to anybody else.
Speaker 8 (19:29):
I was told to try to keep it as minimal
as possible, just in case that we had to reference
something down the road that I wasn't telling everyone about
what was going on.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
So we had a fellow that was working behind the bar.
He would stop the bar, he would go for ice,
he would fill the empty liquor bottles, that type of thing,
kind of a bar back, I guess is what you
call him now. So one day he was saying something
and he just happened to be the nephew of John
Wayne Gacy, and he made it known that this was
(20:02):
the time that John Wine Gacy got caught and that
he felt like his uncle was innocent. That he would
go see his uncle, and I think he referenced something
about the situation with his uncle, and then something about
one of the notes, something that was in one of
(20:22):
the notes that he had left. I can't remember what
it was specifically about, but I do know I didn't
tell him anything about those letters. So when I started
thinking about it, my brother had just gotten home from
the Marines, and I was sitting at our table talking
about what's been happening to me and how I'm kind
(20:43):
of getting more scared to go to work and what
I'm going to find once.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I get out of work.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
So I guess my brother was very protective of me
and had showed up at the bar unexpected. I didn't
know what he was doing there because I'm like normally
do this. He had made a comment and they stepped
outside for a minute, and then after that I never
got any more letters. I wasn't ever really spoken to them. Yeah,
(21:15):
it kind of disappeared.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
This guy that your brother confronted. Can you just describe
what he looked like.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
Or what I want to say. He was probably about
five eight to five ten, extremely short, dark hair. I
want to say he wore glasses like Clark Kent, you know,
the black framed glasses kind of squared, and then he
(21:44):
would always wear a green jacket, vinyl jacket that said
PM Bentley's on it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Did you ever come to an occasion where you would know,
like where he lived or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
I didn't know where he lived. I would assumed he
lives somewhere in the area because he would go to
visit his uncle several times, and then when he was
in his uncle was in prison, John Wayne Gacy, he
would visit him a lot and get napkins or papers
(22:21):
of his pictures he doodled in prison, and then he
would actually bring them back to the bar, trying to
get money for the artwork so he could help pay
for attorney fees. So I'm assuming that he was somewhere
in the area so he could do all of this.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
It sounds like Susannah's Marine Corps brother basically told this guy,
you know, knock it off and lo and behold. The
letters had stopped, the following stopped, and the car getting
moved around had stopped. Also, I mean everything stopped.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
This made Susanna feel pretty confident that she knew who
was responsible for stalking her and moving her car. Susanna
didn't remember the guy's name, but as you would imagine,
in the Chicagoland area, specifically in the nineteen eighties, anything
that was associated with the name John Wayne Gacy was
pretty memorable.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, for sure, our listeners might remember that. Even Terry
himself mentions Gaysey in one of the statements we found
in the newspaper. We played that in a previous episode,
So obviously this Gaysey issue was something that was still
on people's mind out here even in nineteen eighty three. Well,
we thought this little nugget of information about this Gaysey
connection would be useful to maybe try to track down
who this guy actually was and confirm if he did
(23:35):
actually write the letters or not.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So, armed with this Gaysey connection but no name, we
reached out to Frank and another manager who worked at
PM Bentley's back in nineteen eighty three. Both men gave
us the same name immediately when we asked them about
any former employees who either were or maybe claimed to
be somehow associated with John Wayne Gacy, and both confirmed
that the same man worked at two other area restaurants
(23:58):
and PM Bentley's. Those three restaurants were Cattleman's Restaurant, Algonquin
and the Family Inn in East Dundee. This guy also
worked primarily weekends at Pam Bentley's, but was kind of
an off the books employee. Here's Frank talking about him.
There was an employee that was not on the books
with you guys here that I called and I talked
to you about on the phone. I'd ask you about
(24:21):
a guy that maybe was related to or claimed to
be related to John Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 7 (24:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, he was. He used to come in
and clean up, just just stuff for us. He worked
for me at the Family In as a busboy. Yeah, okay,
I know we can here. He's kind of hang out.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
When he would hang out here, Like what did he
do for you?
Speaker 7 (24:43):
Just clean up? Okay, sweep the floors.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Would it be common for him to be there on
a weekend, like, not as a paid employee or like
kind of off the books employee helping out like the
weekend that she could have been there? Is it possible
he could have.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Been Once we figured out who this person was, you
realized that he was not included on the original list
of employees that Frank had provided back in nineteen eighty three.
So obviously we wanted to track him down to talk
to him about this case and to determine if he
was responsible for the letters that were found in Susannah's car.
This employee no longer lives in Illinois, but we did
(25:17):
track him down and spoke with him.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
That's right. The employee, who we will not name in
this podcast, told us that he did work at Pam Bentley's,
but he did not recall anything about Karen's case. He
did remember Susannah and even describe what she looked like
to us. Andy said he would sometimes walk her to
her car because she was afraid. He remembered that she
had stuffed fevers in her car too, and he also
thought he might have gone dancing with her at some point,
(25:40):
but he wasn't sure. The employee confirmed that he knew
John Wayne Gacy, but he denied ever bringing any letters
into the bar or drawings, and denied ever openly talking
about Gaysey. He also denied writing any letters that were
left in Susanna's car, and he denied any other actions
surrounding Susannah or her car. He even offered to provide
a handwrite example if necessary. The employee also mentioned that
(26:02):
he believed PM Bentley's did not open until the spring
of nineteen eighty three, so we're working to track down
some of those exact dates. I should note that in
the original report on April twenty first, nineteen eighty three,
Frank told the police that Susannah had someone follow her
home in January and she no longer worked for him
by April. So it does appear the bar had to
have been open in the spring of eighty three, and
(26:23):
we know that Susannah and this employee did work together
because they both remembered each other and they both describe
each other. We'll continue to track down more information, but
that's why we need your help. We need help from
the public. If any listeners knew or worked with Susannah
or anyone else at PIM Bentley's in nineteen eighty three,
please contact us. At this time, we cannot confirm who
wrote the letters, but we will certainly be looking into
(26:45):
this and doing more follow up as we look at
this new lead and try to learn things about Susannah's letter,
what happened to her, and as if it's related to
this case, you know, Matt. We should note that we
did call Susannah back after we talked to this employee
and she maintained her original statement. Yes, she said she
never talked to this guy about the letters, She never
had him walk her to her car, and she never
(27:06):
went dancing with him. She really had nothing to do
with him. So her story is her story and his
is his. That's why we need to keep looking into
this case and talking to as many people as we can.
We want to get input from other employees who either
knew this employee or Susannah, or anyone else at the
bar who could have been writing these letters to her.
Speaker 9 (27:26):
Well.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
As in past episodes, this is where we want to
ask for your help. If any listeners knew or worked
with Susannah or this other employee, please contact us. We
know that this employee worked part time at PM Bentley's
on the weekends and at both Family Inn of East
Dundee and Cattleman's Restaurant in Algonquin, So if you or
anyone you know worked at either location back then knows
(27:47):
any information that might be useful or remembers this person
or Susannah, please contact us.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah, and I'd like to add if you or anyone
you know remember anything about notes being left on Susannah's car,
or had someone leave similar notes on your are move
your card anyway, or follow you home or anything else
like that. Anything that's similar to Susanna's story, especially in
the Elgin, Carpentersville, Dundee, and Algonquin areas in the nineteen eighties,
(28:12):
please reach out to us. We would love to talk
to This new wrinkle in the case is something that
we will continue looking into, and we'd like to get
as much information from the public as we can as
we look into this new potential lead.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
We both want to thank Susanna for talking with us
and giving this information to us, and thank Frank for
his help with the case and for taking time out
of his day to meet with us multiple times, go
up to the site and walk us through some places.
It was really helpful. Frank was very cooperative with the
police back in nineteen eighty three and remains cooperative today.
He provided a lot of information on different employees that
(28:46):
worked the night that Karen went missing, and police talk
to some of them, and we've talked to some of them,
but we're still having trouble tracking them all down. If
you are an employee that did work at PM Bentley's
please contact us. We'd love to talk to you and
specific If there's any listeners who worked at PM Bentley's
between nineteen eighty two and nineteen eighty three or recognize
(29:06):
any of the following names that I'm going to list,
please contact us. These are a couple of the employees
that we have not been able to locate, but based
on the original report, we know they had some sort
of contact with Karen in the bar. The first is
a woman named Vedetta. She was reportedly a waitress and
was waiting the tables where Karen and her group were.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
The second is a woman named Stormy and she was
reportedly a bartender who told police back in nineteen eighty
three she briefly talked to Karen in the bathroom and
remembered seeing her at the bar. And the third person
is a man named Dave or David, who was a
server or a bartender and told the police that he
remembered seeing Karen sometime around one am, still inside the bar.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
We'd like to add that we have no reasona believe
that any of these people that we had just talked
about were in any way involved in Karen's disappearance. They
were just simply workers who worked there based on the
original reports that we had found or had some type
of contact with Karen that night, and one of them
was never interviewed at all. We would love to have
the opportunity to be able to sit down and interview
them and any other employees who might have information as
(30:08):
we look over and review this case. That is a
huge reason why we're using this platform to release information
and to talk about Karen's case. So please contact us
if these names ring a bell, or if you know
anyone else who is working at PM Bentley's in nineteen
eighty three. And I'd like to add if anybody has
any pictures of the way that PM Bentley's looked in
the early nineteen eighties, please send that over to us.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, you can send them to our email address. It's
the Cold Case Tips at ELGINIL dot gov. Well, Matt,
I think we both certainly think there's some things about
thirty number two that could be important. It's entirely possible
that PM Bentley's the Bar is the site where the
answer to Karen's disappears lies. Let's recap a couple different things. First,
(30:54):
we have David, who we talked about last episode, he
thought he saw Karen inside the bar and possibly outside
the bar to a biker and then arguing with the
biker outside.
Speaker 9 (31:02):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
There were bikers that were known to frequent the bar,
and according to both Frank and Susannah, they sometimes cause
problems there. Some connection to a biker or group of
bikers could certainly be relevant for Karen's case.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah, and now we have another person that is basically
stalking Susannah, leaving her notes, moving her car in the
parking lot, following her home and tell us that is
a big red flag and it's just a few months
before Karen had disappeared.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Given all the possibilities, I don't think either of us
are ready to write off this theory just yet. We
have some more work to do regarding this part time
employee or some other employee who's possibly leaving these letters
on Susanna's car. We also briefly mentioned there was a
carnival nearby at the time. We're still looking into that,
Plus some other tips have come in about bikers in
the area and things of that nature. Hopefully, as we
(31:48):
continue the season, more people will come forward with more
new information that will help us keep looking at theory
number two, something happened at PM Bentley's. As always, you
can provide your name or provide information anonymously. What you
know is more important to us than who you are.
I know, we've said that a couple times.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, that's right. And as we get new information on
this theory, or any other theory for that matter, we
will certainly update our listeners when we can. But I
think for now it's time that we move on to
theory number three and consider the option that Karen left
the bar, but that something had happened to her on
her drive home. Next time, on Somebody Knows Something, we
(32:28):
look at the option that Karen's safety left PM Bentley's,
then something happened to her on her drive home. Did
Karen stop somewhere for some reason? Did she meet someone?
Did somebody hurt her? We do know that there were
at least three different serial killers operating in the Fox
Valley area around the time of Karen's disappearance. Did one
of them have something to do with Karen going missing?
(32:49):
We won't answer these questions, and more so, please join
us next time as we discuss theory number three, Karen's
drive home.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
If you or anyone you know has information about this
case or any other cold case in Elgin, please contact
the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Email at cold Case
tips at elginil dot gov or the cold case tip
line at eight four seven two eight nine cold. You
can also review cold case information on the Elgin Police
(33:29):
Department's Transparency Hub by going to elginil dot gov and
navigating to the Elgin Police Department's Transparency Hub, where every
cold case, homicide, and missing person's case is listed with
photographs and information about each case.
This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police
and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details
may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons.
While the events in cases discussed are based on real investigations,
some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes.
(00:27):
Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents.
All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness.
Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast,
but such discussions are not intended to and should not
(00:48):
be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All
persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a
court of law. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something,
a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit.
In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold
cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details
and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You
will come along with real cold case detectives as they
(01:30):
investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice
for the victims and closure for their families. We believe
that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work
together to bring closure to cold cases because we know
that in these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Hello and welcome to the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Podcast.
Somebody Knows Something. My name is Detective Andrew Howton.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Detective Matt Vartanian. Last episode, we took our listeners to
the site where PM Bentley's was located in nineteen eighty
three and discussed with a witness who claimed that he
saw Karen with some bikers both inside on April fifteenth
and outside the bar in the early morning hours of
April sixteenth of nineteen eighty three. We also reviewed a
(02:21):
tip about a man with a beij van who a
woman said claimed he was responsible for Karen's disappearance. Since
we began our investigation, we tracked on a new witness
who was never interviewed by police for this case. In
this episode, we will hear directly from her and her
(02:43):
new information which could point this investigation in a totally
new direction.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Okay, So we visited the site where PM Bentley's was
located and we spoke with the owner, Frank, who's been
really helpful regarding history of the bar. Things like that.
Back in nineteen eighty three, Frank cooperated flour with police,
was interviewed and he gave a list of numerous employees
who were working tonight that Karen went missing. He also
gave another piece of potentially valuable information that was never
(03:08):
fully fleshed out until now.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
That's right. The original report from April of nineteen eighty
three included a list of employees, and the original officer
at that time wrote three sentences in his report that
we felt could be very, very important.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
The owner advised that he had a former employee that
worked for him in January nineteen eighty three. He advised
of a particular incident that happened with her that month.
She advised him that one night after leaving the tavern,
a subject followed her home in a car.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
That former employee was no longer working at PM Bentley's
on April fifteenth of nineteen eighty three. But that information
certainly piqued our interest, especially when we realized that no
one ever had talked to her.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Absolutely well. As we've talked about in the past, tracking
people down almost four decades later, it can be really difficult,
and it took us some time to find out who
this employee actually was, given that her last name had
changed since nineteen eighty three and there wasn't a date
of birth provided for her in the report. But we
were able to do it, and when we did May
and Matt, I mean, she had some really interesting things.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
To tell us.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Yeah, the former employe's name is Susannah. When we first
spoke to Susannah on the phone, she had no knowledge
of this case whatsoever. She had never even heard about
Karen or that anyone had gone missing. In fact, she
asked us how we even got her name.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
We explained to her who we were and what we
were doing, and once she kind of found that out,
she asked us to tell her a little bit about
Karen's case. Once she understood what our goals were and
what this case was all about, she was more than
happy to help us in any way that she could.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
We asked Susannah about her time at PM Bentley's, what
it was like to work there, and what type of
crowd the bar typically had on any given night, specifically
on the weekends. This is what she had to say.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
I was trying to do a timeline so my best
recollection is that I must have started in the fall
of nineteen eighty two. I worked there part time. I
was a secretary by day for a private restaurant, and
then I worked there part time, probably on the weekends. Mostly.
The uniform that we were given is a pair of
(05:18):
green tight shorts and a yellow T shirt that was
pretty form fitting as well. It was kind of like
oh Hooter's outfit to compare it to. OK, so that
was our standard outfit. And the clientele that was there
in the beginning, it was when they first really opened up.
(05:40):
It was very nice, young kids basically coming in to
hear live music. The bands were different kinds of bands,
of course, different kinds of music, mostly pop rock, and
people could come in have a cocktail dance and it
would be open till two am in the morning and
then you know, go on their merry way for breakfast.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You said that the clientele initially was pretty good, like
younger kids coming into your bands. Was there a change
in that during the time you worked there.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
I think probably somewhere closer to the end of me leaving,
we were getting motorcycle people coming in and I'd not
say anything bad about motorcycle riders, but I think it
was a lot of people that we weren't used to
if you were local people trying to have a good time,
(06:32):
So they were outsiders.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
I would say, obviously, because this biker angle is something
that has come up in the investigation, we wanted a
little bit more information about that. This is an off
the wall question with this, but do you ever remember
them like wearing like black leather vests with like colors
on the back of them that would signify, you know,
maybe like belonging to a gang or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
I know that there were like in the summer, I
think they were wearing the vest with the T shirt
type thing, and then I can't remember if there's anything
on the back of their vests or anything.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Okay, And do you remember them ever causing problems, you know,
for you guys at all.
Speaker 6 (07:11):
I think there was some times where they were asked
to leave, and I don't know if they were happy
about that. You know, everybody's wanting to have a good
time and you know, not be kicked out of a bar.
But I do know there was some kind of confrontation
a couple of times that when they were asked to
(07:31):
leave okay.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
And when you say confrontation, like did they get into
it with like the bouncers or like just other clientele,
or did like the police have to be involved.
Speaker 6 (07:41):
I don't know, because once I was I was the bartender,
so I stayed behind the bar, so once they were
asked to leave, I never knew if the police were
out there with the manager or whatever. I know there
was like a bouncer and then a manager type people
that would take care of all that.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
We also asked Susanna to describe the bar's interior to
us to get a better idea from her memory as
a worker there. We'd walked up there with Frank, but
it was nice to get another perspective.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
So you went inside the mall and there was like
a little ramp type walk away area. There were no steps,
so once you reached the bottom of that ramp, PM
Bentleys was to your right, so you had to go
through the double doors first of all to get into
the building, and then the doors to the PM Bentleys
was on the right as well, and that would have
been locked unless the bar was open. So once you
(08:29):
walked in there, you were in like the lobby area.
I don't know what else to call it, but that's
where the payphone would be. That would be the bathrooms.
If you made a very quick right once you entered,
you would go into the actual bar area where you
could sit, and I want to say it was like
a square, probably more of a rectangular shaped bar, so
(08:53):
it was totally enclosed and you could sit all the
way around the four sides of the bar.
Speaker 7 (08:58):
Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
And then right after, if you're going back into the lobby,
if you walk right past the bathrooms, which would have
been you know, right after the right turn, you would
have gone to the bar. The bathrooms were right there.
So right after the bar would be the lounge area
where they had stand up tables tabletops for a little
(09:21):
lower seating, and then it had a pretty decent size
dance floor and at the back end of the little
lounge or the bar would be the stage for the bands.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Okay, well, it was great to get that new perspective
from Susannah about the layout, the atmosphere, the patrons, the background.
What we really wanted to know about was Frank's statement
about this guy potentially following her home back in nineteen
eighty three. Susanna confirmed that someone did follow her home,
and she did tell Frank about it because it really
freaked her out.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
So I would leave the bar. We would start cleaning
up about one point thirty, and if everybody was out
the door, we were able to leave at two. They
were pretty strict about not having in the beginning. They
were strict about getting out of there at two o'clock.
So I had left, and I lived.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
All the way in Lake in the Hills, so I
thought it was weird that.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
A car was turning. You know, first of all, when
you see somebody turning out on the parking lot, you
just think everybody's leaving, blah blah, blah blah. And then
when I kept turning, I kept thinking, that person's like
turning all the way the same way I am, and
they and they were right behind me the whole time.
It wasn't like there.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Was a stop light.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
I lost them, another car got in front of them
or turned in front of them. At two o'clock in
the morning, there wasn't a whole lot of people on
the road, so he a person, I should say, I
can't say exactly who at that time, followed me. And
then when I turned into my driveway, and like in
the hills, it went straight.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Do you remember anything about the car that followed you.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I guess I don't really remember a whole lot. I
want to say it was it was a car versus
a truck.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Okay, And you said, yeah, when you pulled into your driveway,
did you Was it a single family home or was
it an apartment or I lived with.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
My parents, so it was a four bedroom, full basement
home with a garage. But I was the one that
had to park outside the garage because I came in last.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah, it was like in a subdivision, I assume, yes.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
Yes, it's right off of Randall Road.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Okay. Do you remember anything else about the car, like color, size,
anything like that.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
No, because I was kind of freakish. You know. That
was the age before I had a cell phone, so
it's not like you could make a phone call on
the way home and ask somebody to be waiting for
you or whatever. So I just wanted to hurry up
and getting up a driveway and then run in the house.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Someone following Susannah home is certainly a lead we wanted
to look at, but we never expected Susannah to tell
that A whole lot more had happened to her while
she worked at PM Bentley's.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Yes, I was. I drove a little sports car convertible.
I was young and dumb, but I would drive that
to the bar. And there were several occasions I would
go out to my car and I had some stuffed
animals in the car as well. You know, your mother
gives you crazy stuffed animals and you put them in
(12:27):
the backseat of your car. So when I had come
out a few times, my stuffed animals were literally tied
up and strangled and by the seat belts of my car,
and a note would be left on the steering wheel.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Did anything else ever happened with your car when it
was in the lot? Yes, So I.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
Would come out some days, and because it was a
stick shift that they could easily move my car, and
because back in the day the mall I think was
bigger than what it is now, and the sidewalks were
real large or wide, i should say, and my car
would be found ten fifteen storefronts down the sidewalk, because
(13:11):
I'd walk out and I'd be like, where's my car?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, you know you described that the one time that
you came out and you found those stubbed animals strangled
with the seatbelts. There was a note on your steering wheel?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Is that right?
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Actually it was a couple times that I have found
notes on my steering wheel, and it progressively got a
little more demented and a little bit weirder every time
I find another note.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Yeah, would you be able to share with us some
of the details of the note, like just kind of
how like what they were kind of talking about at first,
and then how it kind of got a little scarier
for you.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Yeah, So in the beginning it would just be about
my animals or me, so and this was kind of weird.
So I was real young, and I would too on
wooden pencils all the time. I guess I had very
large front teeth.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
So my mother always used.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
To call me beaver. So her idea was to give
me stuffed animals that were beavers. So inside my car
were all stuffed beavers. So one of the letters was
addressed to Beaver.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Susannah went on to tell us that the letters were
sexual and stalking in nature, and that she was pretty
concerned about the car being moved, the person following her
home and the letters. She also told us that multiple
letters were left in her car at various times in
late nineteen eighty two or maybe early of nineteen eighty three.
She didn't remember all the details about the letters, but
(14:43):
said that they really did kind of creep her out.
Then shortly after we hung up with her, she called
us back.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Hey, this is Susanna. I just wanted to inform you
that I had found one of the letters that I
received during the time I worked at Pam Bentley's. It
is from the fellow that followed me home and it
is quite disturbing letter. He addresses it to Beaver and
he ends it beaver squeezer, and the contents of the
(15:14):
letter is kind of sick and demented. Talks about strangling
my beavers and what's a threesome with me, my car,
my beavers. So I just want to let you know
I got this letter and I will give it to
you in person when I see.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You, Okay, Matt. So we were pretty blown away that
Susannah still had one of these letters. Yeah, and we
were really interested in hearing what I had to say,
So we immediately called her back, and when she read
the letter to us over the phone and then sent
us a photograph of it. We both agreed the contents
were very disturbing. Here's what that actual letter said.
Speaker 9 (15:50):
Beaver saw you at Rick's grad party. Loved your laugh
he he, You really seemed to know how to put
the AHA and party. I would like to meet you,
but I'm too shy at this time, so I'll just
sit and stare at your car and fantasize how you
(16:11):
use your hand on the stick shift. This fantasy runs
in passion as red as your car. What do you
say we get together and have a threesome with you your
car and me not in it, but under it. I
love a tight squeeze. I was jealous that one of
your beavers was a boy, so I strangled it with
(16:33):
a seatbelt in the driver's seat. And part one. That's
all for now, see you Friday Beaver squeezer.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Okay, so I don't know about you. I mean, I
was pretty shocked about the contents of this letter. It
was written in place in Susannah's car in the months
leading up to Karen's disappearance, and she disappeared from the
same place, the same location. Someone had clearly stocked Susanna's
car stocked Susannah entered her car strangled her stuffed animals
on multiple occasions. You know, we both think, and Susanna
(17:09):
did too, that it's likely that the same person that
left these notes and entered her car is the same
person also moved her car across the parking lot, and
she thinks it's probably the same person that also followed
her home.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Susannah also provided us with a picture of herself in
nineteen eighty two, and she looked very similar to Karen.
Both women are white. Susannah was almost twenty two years
old when Karen vanished, and then, as people remember, Karen
was twenty three, and Susannah was similar in height, weight,
and had a pretty similar hairstyle to some of the
early eighty photos that we have of Karen. She fears
(17:42):
that the same person could have potentially had something to
do with Karen's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Susannah went on to tell us that this Beaver Squeezer
letter was the first letter she got in a series
of four or maybe five letters. While she didn't remember
the exact contents of the subsequent letters, she did say
they progressively got more sexual will and more intense, and
this first letter we felt was sexually pretty intense. In
the first place. Yeah, So, according to Susannah, this first
(18:08):
letter was the most tame one. They must have gotten
pretty graphic moving forward.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Yeah, Susannah was understandably concerned about all the actions in
the parking lot with her car, and with the fact
that the author of the letters referenced her as quote
unquote beaver, something that only people who were around her
would have known about. She also said that the subsequent
letters talked about things at the bar, so she felt
that the author was certainly someone who was around PM
(18:34):
Bentley's at the time when she was working, kind of
like someone that who was maybe a regular customer, maybe
even an employee.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Susannah did report the letters to Carpentersville police either in
late eighty two or early nineteen eighty three, a little
before Karen's disappearance. According to her, the police did some
extra patrols around closing time and she turned in a
couple of the letters to the police department. Unfortunately, when
we went back and tried to look for those records,
records from eighty two to eighty three just don't exist anymore. Yeah,
the retention periods for that type of case is different
(19:02):
because it's not a homicide or some other case where
you would keep those records. Thankfully, she was able to
come across this one letter in her storage unit, and
it gives us a really good idea of the content
of these letters.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
As we discussed the actual letter with Susannah, she had
one more, really big piece of information she wanted to
share with us. She believed that she knew who was
sending the letters.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Was there ever an occasion where you discovered who was
writing these letters to you?
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Yeah? So I didn't say much to anybody else.
Speaker 8 (19:29):
I was told to try to keep it as minimal
as possible, just in case that we had to reference
something down the road that I wasn't telling everyone about
what was going on.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
So we had a fellow that was working behind the bar.
He would stop the bar, he would go for ice,
he would fill the empty liquor bottles, that type of thing,
kind of a bar back, I guess is what you
call him now. So one day he was saying something
and he just happened to be the nephew of John
Wayne Gacy, and he made it known that this was
(20:02):
the time that John Wine Gacy got caught and that
he felt like his uncle was innocent. That he would
go see his uncle, and I think he referenced something
about the situation with his uncle, and then something about
one of the notes, something that was in one of
(20:22):
the notes that he had left. I can't remember what
it was specifically about, but I do know I didn't
tell him anything about those letters. So when I started
thinking about it, my brother had just gotten home from
the Marines, and I was sitting at our table talking
about what's been happening to me and how I'm kind
(20:43):
of getting more scared to go to work and what
I'm going to find once.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I get out of work.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
So I guess my brother was very protective of me
and had showed up at the bar unexpected. I didn't
know what he was doing there because I'm like normally
do this. He had made a comment and they stepped
outside for a minute, and then after that I never
got any more letters. I wasn't ever really spoken to them. Yeah,
(21:15):
it kind of disappeared.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
This guy that your brother confronted. Can you just describe
what he looked like.
Speaker 6 (21:21):
Or what I want to say. He was probably about
five eight to five ten, extremely short, dark hair. I
want to say he wore glasses like Clark Kent, you know,
the black framed glasses kind of squared, and then he
(21:44):
would always wear a green jacket, vinyl jacket that said
PM Bentley's on it.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Did you ever come to an occasion where you would know,
like where he lived or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
I didn't know where he lived. I would assumed he
lives somewhere in the area because he would go to
visit his uncle several times, and then when he was
in his uncle was in prison, John Wayne Gacy, he
would visit him a lot and get napkins or papers
(22:21):
of his pictures he doodled in prison, and then he
would actually bring them back to the bar, trying to
get money for the artwork so he could help pay
for attorney fees. So I'm assuming that he was somewhere
in the area so he could do all of this.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
It sounds like Susannah's Marine Corps brother basically told this guy,
you know, knock it off and lo and behold. The
letters had stopped, the following stopped, and the car getting
moved around had stopped. Also, I mean everything stopped.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
This made Susanna feel pretty confident that she knew who
was responsible for stalking her and moving her car. Susanna
didn't remember the guy's name, but as you would imagine,
in the Chicagoland area, specifically in the nineteen eighties, anything
that was associated with the name John Wayne Gacy was
pretty memorable.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, for sure, our listeners might remember that. Even Terry
himself mentions Gaysey in one of the statements we found
in the newspaper. We played that in a previous episode,
So obviously this Gaysey issue was something that was still
on people's mind out here even in nineteen eighty three. Well,
we thought this little nugget of information about this Gaysey
connection would be useful to maybe try to track down
who this guy actually was and confirm if he did
(23:35):
actually write the letters or not.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So, armed with this Gaysey connection but no name, we
reached out to Frank and another manager who worked at
PM Bentley's back in nineteen eighty three. Both men gave
us the same name immediately when we asked them about
any former employees who either were or maybe claimed to
be somehow associated with John Wayne Gacy, and both confirmed
that the same man worked at two other area restaurants
(23:58):
and PM Bentley's. Those three restaurants were Cattleman's Restaurant, Algonquin
and the Family Inn in East Dundee. This guy also
worked primarily weekends at Pam Bentley's, but was kind of
an off the books employee. Here's Frank talking about him.
There was an employee that was not on the books
with you guys here that I called and I talked
to you about on the phone. I'd ask you about
(24:21):
a guy that maybe was related to or claimed to
be related to John Wayne Gacy.
Speaker 7 (24:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, he was. He used to come in
and clean up, just just stuff for us. He worked
for me at the Family In as a busboy. Yeah, okay,
I know we can here. He's kind of hang out.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
When he would hang out here, Like what did he
do for you?
Speaker 7 (24:43):
Just clean up? Okay, sweep the floors.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Would it be common for him to be there on
a weekend, like, not as a paid employee or like
kind of off the books employee helping out like the
weekend that she could have been there? Is it possible
he could have.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Been Once we figured out who this person was, you
realized that he was not included on the original list
of employees that Frank had provided back in nineteen eighty three.
So obviously we wanted to track him down to talk
to him about this case and to determine if he
was responsible for the letters that were found in Susannah's car.
This employee no longer lives in Illinois, but we did
(25:17):
track him down and spoke with him.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
That's right. The employee, who we will not name in
this podcast, told us that he did work at Pam Bentley's,
but he did not recall anything about Karen's case. He
did remember Susannah and even describe what she looked like
to us. Andy said he would sometimes walk her to
her car because she was afraid. He remembered that she
had stuffed fevers in her car too, and he also
thought he might have gone dancing with her at some point,
(25:40):
but he wasn't sure. The employee confirmed that he knew
John Wayne Gacy, but he denied ever bringing any letters
into the bar or drawings, and denied ever openly talking
about Gaysey. He also denied writing any letters that were
left in Susanna's car, and he denied any other actions
surrounding Susannah or her car. He even offered to provide
a handwrite example if necessary. The employee also mentioned that
(26:02):
he believed PM Bentley's did not open until the spring
of nineteen eighty three, so we're working to track down
some of those exact dates. I should note that in
the original report on April twenty first, nineteen eighty three,
Frank told the police that Susannah had someone follow her
home in January and she no longer worked for him
by April. So it does appear the bar had to
have been open in the spring of eighty three, and
(26:23):
we know that Susannah and this employee did work together
because they both remembered each other and they both describe
each other. We'll continue to track down more information, but
that's why we need your help. We need help from
the public. If any listeners knew or worked with Susannah
or anyone else at PIM Bentley's in nineteen eighty three,
please contact us. At this time, we cannot confirm who
wrote the letters, but we will certainly be looking into
(26:45):
this and doing more follow up as we look at
this new lead and try to learn things about Susannah's letter,
what happened to her, and as if it's related to
this case, you know, Matt. We should note that we
did call Susannah back after we talked to this employee
and she maintained her original statement. Yes, she said she
never talked to this guy about the letters, She never
had him walk her to her car, and she never
(27:06):
went dancing with him. She really had nothing to do
with him. So her story is her story and his
is his. That's why we need to keep looking into
this case and talking to as many people as we can.
We want to get input from other employees who either
knew this employee or Susannah, or anyone else at the
bar who could have been writing these letters to her.
Speaker 9 (27:26):
Well.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
As in past episodes, this is where we want to
ask for your help. If any listeners knew or worked
with Susannah or this other employee, please contact us. We
know that this employee worked part time at PM Bentley's
on the weekends and at both Family Inn of East
Dundee and Cattleman's Restaurant in Algonquin, So if you or
anyone you know worked at either location back then knows
(27:47):
any information that might be useful or remembers this person
or Susannah, please contact us.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah, and I'd like to add if you or anyone
you know remember anything about notes being left on Susannah's car,
or had someone leave similar notes on your are move
your card anyway, or follow you home or anything else
like that. Anything that's similar to Susanna's story, especially in
the Elgin, Carpentersville, Dundee, and Algonquin areas in the nineteen eighties,
(28:12):
please reach out to us. We would love to talk
to This new wrinkle in the case is something that
we will continue looking into, and we'd like to get
as much information from the public as we can as
we look into this new potential lead.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
We both want to thank Susanna for talking with us
and giving this information to us, and thank Frank for
his help with the case and for taking time out
of his day to meet with us multiple times, go
up to the site and walk us through some places.
It was really helpful. Frank was very cooperative with the
police back in nineteen eighty three and remains cooperative today.
He provided a lot of information on different employees that
(28:46):
worked the night that Karen went missing, and police talk
to some of them, and we've talked to some of them,
but we're still having trouble tracking them all down. If
you are an employee that did work at PM Bentley's
please contact us. We'd love to talk to you and
specific If there's any listeners who worked at PM Bentley's
between nineteen eighty two and nineteen eighty three or recognize
(29:06):
any of the following names that I'm going to list,
please contact us. These are a couple of the employees
that we have not been able to locate, but based
on the original report, we know they had some sort
of contact with Karen in the bar. The first is
a woman named Vedetta. She was reportedly a waitress and
was waiting the tables where Karen and her group were.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
The second is a woman named Stormy and she was
reportedly a bartender who told police back in nineteen eighty
three she briefly talked to Karen in the bathroom and
remembered seeing her at the bar. And the third person
is a man named Dave or David, who was a
server or a bartender and told the police that he
remembered seeing Karen sometime around one am, still inside the bar.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
We'd like to add that we have no reasona believe
that any of these people that we had just talked
about were in any way involved in Karen's disappearance. They
were just simply workers who worked there based on the
original reports that we had found or had some type
of contact with Karen that night, and one of them
was never interviewed at all. We would love to have
the opportunity to be able to sit down and interview
them and any other employees who might have information as
(30:08):
we look over and review this case. That is a
huge reason why we're using this platform to release information
and to talk about Karen's case. So please contact us
if these names ring a bell, or if you know
anyone else who is working at PM Bentley's in nineteen
eighty three. And I'd like to add if anybody has
any pictures of the way that PM Bentley's looked in
the early nineteen eighties, please send that over to us.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, you can send them to our email address. It's
the Cold Case Tips at ELGINIL dot gov. Well, Matt,
I think we both certainly think there's some things about
thirty number two that could be important. It's entirely possible
that PM Bentley's the Bar is the site where the
answer to Karen's disappears lies. Let's recap a couple different things. First,
(30:54):
we have David, who we talked about last episode, he
thought he saw Karen inside the bar and possibly outside
the bar to a biker and then arguing with the
biker outside.
Speaker 9 (31:02):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
There were bikers that were known to frequent the bar,
and according to both Frank and Susannah, they sometimes cause
problems there. Some connection to a biker or group of
bikers could certainly be relevant for Karen's case.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah, and now we have another person that is basically
stalking Susannah, leaving her notes, moving her car in the
parking lot, following her home and tell us that is
a big red flag and it's just a few months
before Karen had disappeared.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Given all the possibilities, I don't think either of us
are ready to write off this theory just yet. We
have some more work to do regarding this part time
employee or some other employee who's possibly leaving these letters
on Susanna's car. We also briefly mentioned there was a
carnival nearby at the time. We're still looking into that,
Plus some other tips have come in about bikers in
the area and things of that nature. Hopefully, as we
(31:48):
continue the season, more people will come forward with more
new information that will help us keep looking at theory
number two, something happened at PM Bentley's. As always, you
can provide your name or provide information anonymously. What you
know is more important to us than who you are.
I know, we've said that a couple times.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, that's right. And as we get new information on
this theory, or any other theory for that matter, we
will certainly update our listeners when we can. But I
think for now it's time that we move on to
theory number three and consider the option that Karen left
the bar, but that something had happened to her on
her drive home. Next time, on Somebody Knows Something, we
(32:28):
look at the option that Karen's safety left PM Bentley's,
then something happened to her on her drive home. Did
Karen stop somewhere for some reason? Did she meet someone?
Did somebody hurt her? We do know that there were
at least three different serial killers operating in the Fox
Valley area around the time of Karen's disappearance. Did one
of them have something to do with Karen going missing?
(32:49):
We won't answer these questions, and more so, please join
us next time as we discuss theory number three, Karen's
drive home.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
If you or anyone you know has information about this
case or any other cold case in Elgin, please contact
the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Email at cold Case
tips at elginil dot gov or the cold case tip
line at eight four seven two eight nine cold. You
can also review cold case information on the Elgin Police
(33:29):
Department's Transparency Hub by going to elginil dot gov and
navigating to the Elgin Police Department's Transparency Hub, where every
cold case, homicide, and missing person's case is listed with
photographs and information about each case.
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